Myself and Japanese artist, Inko Ai Takita, will go to Paris give a presentation at the Guimet Museum, in the afternoon on February 24th. The evening before that we will do a talk and book signing in the publisher's own book shop, from 6pm Feb 23rd. Both are about our manga version of the classic The Tale of Genji.
The museum event is part of a big exhibition all about the Tale of Genji, with a lot of interesting related objects and events. Our event will also include the Japanese artist Harumo Sanazaki, the French ‘raguko’ performer Cyril Coppini, and our French publisher, Benoit Labayle.
Anyone in the area is welcome to come:
"Roman fondateur pour la culture japonaise, "Le Dit du Genji" continue d'inspirer des expressions artistiques contemporaines, comme les mangas, qui en réinterprètent les codes et les thèmes. Le plus célèbre est sans doute Asaki yume mishi de Waki Yamato (né en 1948). La récente édition de Sean Michael Wilson (2022), illustrée par Inko Ai Takita, sera présentée dans cette exposition. "
https://www.guimet.fr/fr/expositions/la-cour-du-prince-genji
We had two pleasingly successful events in Paris over the weekend. in the @le.reve.du.papillon a very nice bookshop about 10 minutes down the road from Notre dame, with owners Benoit and Louise who are also the publisher of our Tale of Genji book in French Éditions Synchronique ...I just realised that half the folk in the bookshop photo looked pretty bored, but actually it was a lively event, with many good questions and a relaxed wine party after...by coincidence the TV series 'Emily in Paris' is set on the same street, and they were filming there just 10 minutes before our event started.
Then a well attended event in the auditorium of the 19thC Guimet Museum @museeguimet with the rakugo-ka, Cyril Coppini, who did a good job of being MC of the afternoon for me and japanese manga artists Sanazaki and Inko Ai Takita @inko_dokotei … speaking in French, Japanese and English, the clever laddie.
There were so many people queued up in the museum bookshop afterwards who bought our book and got it signed that it took almost one hour and a half to sign them all and have a wee chat with everyone… nice!
And thanks to Eric Mollet of the Francoise Japon Sasakawa Foundation and Luc Jondreville of the French Ministry of Finance for the support and the enjoyable drinks and chat afterwards about various aspects of France…though, as we can see from my face the next day in Montmartre I was very tired!